Conventionally, a cylindrical heat sink includes a cylindrical body and a plurality of radiating fins connected to a circumferential surface of the cylindrical body.
One prior art is a method for tightly connecting radiating fins to a cylindrical heat sink and device using the cylindrical heat sink. The method mainly includes the steps of using a power source to drive a mold to generate a stepped rotary movement; providing a cylindrical body having a plurality of recesses formed on a circumferential surface thereof, and fixing the cylindrical body on the mold; providing a set of radiating fins and positioning the same to one side of the mold; intermittently rotating the cylindrical body to align the recesses with the radiating fins, and using a fin insertion device to push the radiating fins and sequentially insert them into the recesses on the cylindrical body until all the recesses have the radiating fins inserted therein; and tightly connecting the radiating fins to the recesses via a subsequent tightening process, so that the radiating fins are firmly fixed on and around the cylindrical body to form a heat sink. With the above described heat sink manufacturing method, the radiating fins are sequentially inserted into the recesses on the cylindrical body one by one, and the subsequent tightening process involves complicated manufacturing steps. As a result, an extended time is needed to manufacture the heat sink.
Another prior art is a heat dissipation structure with assembled radiating fins. The heat dissipation structure mainly includes a metal base and a plurality of radiating fins. Each of the radiating fins is formed by integrally stamping and bending a metal sheet into a U-shaped member, so that the U-shaped radiating fin includes two heat radiating sections in the form of two flat plates and an elastic retaining section in the form of a U-shaped plate. Two lateral sides of the elastic retaining section provide an elastic restoring force and are integrally connected to the two heat radiating sections. The two lateral sides of the retaining section can be pushed toward each other to deform the retaining section. Each deformed retaining section of the radiating fin can be inserted into one of a plurality of grooves provided on the metal base. The grooves respectively have a configuration corresponding to that of the elastic retaining section and have a size-reduced open side. Due to the elastic restoring force thereof, the elastic retaining section received in each groove can have two lateral outer surfaces firmly pressed against two opposite edges of the open side of the groove, so that all the radiating fins can be inserted onto the metal base to form a heat sink. In the above described heat sink manufacturing method, the elastic retaining sections must be compressed before they are sequentially inserted into the grooves. Therefore, a long time is needed to manufacture the heat sink. Meanwhile, the radiating fins are not tightly fitted onto the metal base and tend to separate therefrom under an external force or a longitudinal push force applied thereto.
In brief, the prior art heat sink structures have the following disadvantages: (1) they all involve complicated manufacturing steps and accordingly requiring extended manufacturing time; (2) the radiating fins are not tight-fitted to the cylindrical body or the metal base of the heat sink structure and tend to separate therefrom under an external force or a longitudinal push applied thereto.
It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop an improved heat sink structure and a method of manufacturing same, so as to solve the problems and drawbacks in the conventional heat sink structures.